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I'm going to have an opening shot of a view moving across the desert coming upon my two talents walking. The guy that has a Drone is having a hard time understanding what I want or maybe I'm just really bad explaining it. I tried finding something on youtube to give him an idea but no luck. The shot that I want to achieve is the camera moving about maybe 20ft off the ground towards my talents and just go over the top of them.

I'm going to have an opening shot of a view moving across the desert coming upon my two talents walking. The guy that has a Drone is having a hard time understanding what I want or maybe I'm just really bad explaining it. I tried finding something on youtube to give him an idea but no luck. The shot that I want to achieve is the camera moving about maybe 20ft off the ground towards my talents and just go over the top of them.

Your explanation isn't especially clear to me. Is the drone just flying in a straight line? E.g. 20ft off the ground, travels a certain distance before passing over the top of the talent? Why not take the visuals out of it and tell the drone operator all they need to do is fly in a straight line?

Check if the drone can legally fly directly over people. In Australia your'e not supposed to fly over anyone. You can see this rule being violated all the time at many levels of production. I'd push to do everything by the book. You hear all sorts of stories of drone businesses "reporting" their competitors for breaking the rules.

Sounds pretty straight forward to me. Why don't you visually show. Just take readily availble desk items to simulate the shot. tell him where you want the drone movement to be and where you want the camera to be pointed during the drone movement.

With rgards to flying over people...in the US No person may operate a small unmanned aircraft over a human being unless that human being is:

(a)Directly participating in the operation of the small unmanned aircraft; or

(b) Located under a covered structure or inside a stationary vehicle that can provide reasonable protection from a falling small unmanned aircraft.

Not sure if actors qualify for option A. Or if you can fly right between the two people if they are 4 feet apart for instance, as a workaround. The regulations aren't always so clear cut. If you want to play it safe, you could always apply for a waiver. Again this is with regards to the US and the FAA

Draw two diagrams. First an overhead view showing the track of the aircraft relative to the actors. Underneath the first diagram draw a second that shows altitude on the y axis and time on the x axis. If camera orientation should change add arrows along the track lines.

Not sure if actors qualify for option A. Or if you can fly right between the two people if they are 4 feet apart for instance, as a workaround. The regulations aren't always so clear cut. If you want to play it safe, you could always apply for a waiver. Again this is with regards to the US and the FAA

Actors do not qualify. “Directly participating” in this case means the RPIC (pilot) and any visual observers or persons operating the controls. Flight crew only.

That said, the rule says “directly over” and the FAA means that literally. If you’re just off of directly over, you’re good. Most shots are still pretty possible while staying within the rules.

Waivers for flight over people are currently very hard to get and the drone has to be tethered in every waiver I’ve seen.

There are also new rules coming out (they’re at the NPRM stage) that will allow flight over people with certain safety concessions without a waiver.